An enjoyable, fast-moving yarn.
Trouble could be Jack Reacher’s middle name in this 28th adventure in the series.
In Chicago in 1992, Roberta and Veronica Sanson throw a recovering heart-attack patient out a hospital window. Thus begins a series of murders the women commit as they try to get someone to answer an important question about an event that happened in December 1969. On the team investigating the murders is Capt. Jack Reacher of the military police. Previously, he had been demoted from the rank of major, but that is literally another story. Reacher is a strange man, “naturally suited to two states of existence. Instant, explosive action. And near-catatonic stasis. It was the in-between he struggled with.” Faster and smarter than any four bad guys, he’s a superhero who deserves to have an action figure in his likeness if one doesn't exist already. But he and his team have their hands full with the Sanson sisters, who are killers on a mission. Back in 1969, there had been a team of scientists working on a secret project, and the sisters demand to know the name of the eighth team member, who all the victims insist to their death does not exist. The investigative team is puzzled as they realize someone is picking off retired scientists one by one, and “former CIA assets start dropping like flies.” There are some interesting lines: When a high-ranking government official comes under suspicion, Reacher says, “This is America. The law applies to him the same as everyone else.” Readers who follow current events may find the statement pointed. And Roberta chastises a victim: “There you go. Underestimating a woman, again. Will you never learn?” The plot gets a bit complicated, and readers will find a few nice twists. But mainly, Reacher provides the entertainment with his not quite believable fighting skills.
An enjoyable, fast-moving yarn.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781984818584
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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